"Turkey furthermore
agreed to accept the rapid return of all migrants not in need
of international protection crossing from Turkey into Greece
and to take back
all irregular migrants intercepted in Turkish waters... All new
irregular migrants crossing from Turkey into Greek islands will
be returned to Turkey...

Comment: The EU to end
so-called "irregular migration" (by refugees and migrants)
and deny sanctuary to those fleeing from war, persecution and
poverty.

Migrants arriving in
the Greek islands will be duly registered and any application
for asylum will be processed by the Greek authorities in accordance
with the Asylum
Procedures Directive. Migrants not applying for asylum or whose
application has been found unfounded or inadmissible in accordance
with the said directive will be returned to Turkey....
The costs will be covered by the EU....

The Members of the European
Council welcome the Commission's intention to propose an amendment
to the relocation decision of 22 September 2015 to allow for
any resettlement commitment undertaken in the framework of this
arrangement to be offset from non-allocated places under the
decision. Should the number of returned exceed the numbers
provided for by these arrangements, this mechanism will be subject
to review."

Comment: The scheme for
"relocation" in the EU has abjectly failed - to the
shame of nearly all EU Member States..

The Members of the European Council welcome Turkey's commitment
that migrants returned to Turkey will be protected in accordance
with the international Standards concerning the treatment
of refugees and respecting the principle of non-refoulement."[emphasis added]

"The failure to
date of the EU asylum system to cope with ever-rising numbers
of migrant arrivals calls for a radical overhaul of the so-called
Dublin rules, said Civil Liberties Committee MEPs on Wednesday.
They propose establishing a central system for collecting and
allocating asylum applications. The scheme, which could include
a quota for each EU member state, would work on the basis of
hotspots from which refugees would be distributed."

Statewatch comment: Before
adopting the "hotspots" approach the EP might be wise
find out how they work, are refugees rights respected (ie: do
they have the autimatic right to legal advice?), what is the
effect of "natilonality screenng" and "profiling"
for a start?

Council of Europe: Factsheet: Collective expulsions of
aliens (pdf):
"Article 4 (prohibition of collective expulsion of aliens)
of Protocol
No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights: Collective expulsion of
aliens is prohibited. Collective expulsion
= any measure compelling aliens, as a group, to leave a country,
except where such a measure is taken on the basis of a reasonable
and objective examination of the particular case of each individual
alien of the group."

"In his opening
statement, the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk,
stressed the need to agree on well-adjusted measures and emphasised
that : "I have no doubt that the successful integration
of refugees into our labour markets is in our best interest.
It is the only way to enable the newcomers to stand on their
own feet. And it is the only way to turn the current wave of
migration into an economic opportunity. But the integration
of refugees must not be done on the back of the most vulnerable
individuals of our own societies: the poor, the unemployed, the
disadvantaged. Questions like "why do refugees get so much
support from the government, while it seems to have given up
on me?" are legitimate. We must not provide any breeding
ground for such questions to arise. And this is where I very
much count on the social partners. Their role in maintaining
social cohesion in Europe is key".

"Europe is at "war"
against refugees and Chancellor Angela Merkel is using "double-faced"
rhetoric of welcome and repulsion, said German migration expert
Klaus Bade. He called the EU's overtures to Turkey "scandalous....

In an exasperated commentary
in "MiGAZIN," an online portal specializing in migration,
Bade has accused Berlin of placating the public with security
policy instead of working harder through "massive investments"
to tackle the world's root causes of refugee flight, which have
been evident for decades.

The so-called Balkan
route, closed with "razor-sharp" wire across southern
Europe, has become the EU's new "red line." A process
that began in 2006, when Spain ran Operation Seahorse to stop
migrants from Senegal, Mauritania and Cape Verde from reaching
its Canary Islands, had only become more "gruesome,"
he said."

"Europes
return plan violates Greek law. To address this, Greece must
overhaul its asylum laws in a matter of days to enshrine Turkey
as a safe third country to receive asylum seekers.

The next step is harder:
clearing the backlog. There are around 8,000 migrants on Greek
islands, such as Lesbos and Chios. Officials say they ideally
need to be moved before the so-called X Day 
as early as Friday  when the returns policy officially
begins.

Yet Greek facilities
are strained. Shelter is lacking on the mainland, where almost
40,000 migrants are already stranded. Mixing the groups 
those who are trapped in Greece, awaiting relocation to Europe,
and those who will be sent straight back to Turkey  could
get ugly. "

Auditors
slam EU migration response as incoherent (euractiv, link): "The
European Court of Auditors has published a damning report on
the EUs migration policy, condemning it as incoherent and
lacking in strategy, just as Union leaders prepare to agree on
a controversial deal with Turkey on Friday"

See: Special Report
No 9/2016 (pdf):
"We conclude our report by recommending that the Commission
develop clear and measurable objectives to be implemented by
a coherent set of EU funding instruments supported by effective
monitoring and evaluation, and by an appropriate information
system. Governance arrangements must be simpler and better coordinated."

"On Monday 7th
March 2016 the Interior Ministry proposed amendments to the migration-
and asylum law in Hungary. The legislation is available in Hungarian
here; unfortunately no official English translation has been
issued yet.

The amendments address
various migration-related questions. This not only covers asylum
legislation, but also residence permits and 3rd country nationals
who come to Hungary to work for companies identified by the Hungarian
government as strategic economic partners such as
IBM, Tata, GE and Huawei. This move suggests that the Fidesz
government does not actually have a problem with migrants, but
rather only with a specific type of migrants: those who are fleeing
persecution, conflicts and poverty fuelled by European policies.
With these changes, the Hungarian government legalizes the discrimination
of vulnerable groups and the favouritism of the rich groups institutionalizing
inequalities within the population."

NETHERLANDS: Rising
Islamophobia reported in the Netherlands(New Europe,
link): "A third of the mosques in the Netherlands have
experienced at least one incident of vandalism, threatening letters,
attempted arson, the placement of a pigs head, or other
aggressive actions in the past 10 years, according to research
by Ineke van der Valk, an author and researcher at the University
of Amsterdam."

Turkey catches 54 migrants heading for Greece (ekathimerini.com, link): "Turkey's
coast guard says 54 Afghan migrants were intercepted in the Aegean
Sea as their dinghy sped toward the Greek island of Lesvos, and
were returned to Turkey"

Tusk cautious on chances of Turkey migration deal (ekathimerini.com, link):"The
European Union's summit chairman said on Thursday he was more
cautious than optimistic about the chances of reaching
a deal with Turkey this week to halt an influx of migrants that
has caused a divisive backlash in Europe."

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